Russell Peters - Comedic Style

Comedic Style

Russell Peters' stand-up performances are mostly made up of observational comedy where he uses humour to highlight racial, ethnic, class and cultural stereotypes. He often refers to his own life experiences growing up in an Indian family and impersonates various English accents of different groups in his act to poke fun at each group. As Peters told an audience in San Francisco, "I don't make the stereotypes, I just see them." Peters uses his minority status to allow him to poke fun at different races in his performance, but according to an interview done for The National, he does not intend to put down or offend different races and cultures, but instead tries to raise them up through humour.

Peters is widely known for his punchlines, "Somebody gonna get a hurt real bad", in which he tells a joke about his childhood with a traditional Indian father who would use corporal punishment, and "Be a man!", while imitating a Chinese man trying to get him to pay more for an item at a shop.